


Lyrium and Desire

by SparkleTindi



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Fluff with just a smidge of angst, Not Actually Unrequited Love, but he thinks it might be, like not remotely, lyrium addiction (but fluffy), mostly just suggestive but rated M for some sexy bits
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-18
Updated: 2018-12-18
Packaged: 2019-09-22 02:12:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,979
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17051111
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SparkleTindi/pseuds/SparkleTindi
Summary: These dreams are annoying in the way that the horrifying nightmares can never be. At the same time, the one person who chases them away is someone Cullen would never dream would return his feelings.





	Lyrium and Desire

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to @catknit7 for giving this a quick look to make sure I'm not shaming my ancestors or anything. The timeline is a bit wibbly-wobbly, sort of on purpose. I tried to write this for two years, and then half of it came out in a single night, so there you go. 
> 
> As with most of my writing this is fluffy fluff with some fluff and just a soupçon of angst to make it slightly less saccharine. Hopefully. xD
> 
>  
> 
> ...almost tagged this "Tindi getting carried away in the tags again" which is the largest tag on my Tumblr.

#### He knows without even looking at her that she’s beautiful. Then he turns. She is tall, her body well-muscled but still lushly curved, and her skin is flawless. Her eyes are blue, like the sky at midmorning, deep as the sea. Perhaps it’s getting lost in the depths of her eyes that makes the rest of her seem indistinct; he knows her lips would taste sweet and yet somehow bitter at the same time. Her song, flowing around him like water, is high and bewitching and yet somehow reminds him of chiming bells.

#### He sees her more clearly now, as if his thoughts have given her more definition. Silky-straight, blue-black hair and pale skin, translucent with blue veins visible like the pattern on a porcelain vase, make him yearn to touch, to taste. He can't move, not even to lift his hand. He wants to part the bluish curls between her long, long legs and touch her there as he whispers love into her small, perfect ears, where the veins run so close to the surface so as to make them look entirely blue. Then, when he's gotten her nectar flowing, ah, to taste her at her center, a thirst-quenching bitterness that was unlike anything else...except...

 

Cullen Rutherford, commander of the Inquisition and former templar, sat up in his tent with a shuddering gasp. That dream again. It was worse than the other nightmares, in its own way. At least the nightmares about Kirkwall didn't leave him both frightened and aroused at the same time, he thought, looking down at the bulge disturbing his blanket. He dealt with it as quickly as possible and then got up for the day. It was not quite dawn yet, but he no longer had any desire for sleep.

Haven was still; he wasn’t the only dawn bird up and around, but it was close. Most of the activity was in the forecourt where his tent was set up; soldiers got used to getting up at dawn. He saw a solitary figure wandering around by the lake, and realized it was Isaura-- the Herald. He hoped her sleep was more peaceful than his and that she was just an early riser by inclination. Adan and Mother Giselle had been asking for more elfroot, and of course Isaura was taking care of it herself. Cullen supposed it gave her something to do while they waited to see what would happen next; the templars would arrive any day.

She’d chosen the templars. A Dalish apostate had chosen to side with the people who would have under other circumstances hunted her down, instead of picking the mages. When she was asked about it, Isaura was not shy about giving her reasons, most of which were strategic. The personal ones had more to do with how Grand Enchanter Fiona had acted rather than the Herald playing favorites with the templars because of either him or Cassandra. This had been suggested, though not in Cassandra’s hearing.

As the small figure made her careful way across the iced-over lake, the Seeker came down to her customary place by her own tent. Cassandra spent the first part of every morning in quiet contemplation inside the Chantry, a habit she said she’d picked up at the side of Divine Justinia. “Strange, that our hopes rest on an elf mage, is it not?” the Seeker said quietly after bidding him good morning. “If there needed to be any proof that the Maker works in strange ways, it rests with the Herald.”

Cullen nodded, both of them still watching Isaura, who’d stopped to talk to one of the few other mages they did have, a survivor from the Conclave. “It must be at least as strange to her,” he pointed out. “Who knows what kind of horror stories the Dalish tell about the Chantry? Yet here she is.”

“The Breach forestalls any prejudices,” Cassandra pointed out. More softly, she said, “I want to trust her, Cullen. I don’t know if that is wise, but I have always followed my heart and my instincts before, and they have led me here.” Left in the air was the question of whether where they were was ideal or whether Cassandra could have changed anything, even if it was not.

“I feel the same,” he said, turning to smile at his friend. “How could she have come out of the Fade, if not by the Maker’s will?”

Isaura came over to talk to both of them, red hair wild around her face as it escaped the pins she'd put it in. Her dark cheeks glowed from exertion and from the cold, and she was indeed carrying a pack full of herbs. "Good morning," the Herald of Andraste said cheerfully. "Thought I'd get this taken care of before things went crazy again. Is there any word from the templars?"

Cassandra nodded. "They will be here by this evening," she said. "We will try to close the Breach tomorrow morning."

"Get it out of the way nice and early, hmm?" Isaura replied. "Suits me." With another smile and a wave, she took her herbs off to be sorted and distributed.

"You are not _quite_ staring, but you are close enough that you might want to look away," Cassandra murmured with a faint grin, and Cullen blushed to the tips of his ears.

“Thanks, I think,” the commander muttered, and Cassandra covered her mouth to hide a laugh. “I’m not _that_ bad, am I?” The Seeker just let the laugh escape, which was answer enough.

The templars helped the Inquisitor close the Breach, and they were celebrating, for a change. The attack from Corypheus caught them all completely off-guard. Cullen knew he'd never forgive himself for letting Haven fall. If it hadn't been for Chancellor Roderick, of all people, they would _all_ be dead. Well, the Chancellor and the Herald. Isaura had stayed behind to cover their retreat and then buried Haven under an avalanche, almost catching Corypheus in the fall.

They weren’t sure if Isaura had been caught in it as well, a sacrifice from someone who’d joined the Inquisition under duress and an extinguishing of their only hope against the Breach. Just when they'd begun to give up, there she was, appearing like a ghost out of the swirling snow. Cullen lunged and caught Isaura before she hit the ground, going to his knees in the process. The only one close enough to see how badly the commander's arms were shaking was Cassandra, and she didn't say anything, merely shoring Cullen up on one side as he carried the unconscious elf back to their camp.

Skyhold was a defense-minded commander's dream: one, easily-defended entrance, strong walls... But what was it doing out here in the middle of the Frostback Mountains? Isaura had led them here, but she'd followed Solas. Cullen tried to tell himself that he was just concerned because they still weren't sure where the elf hedge-mage had come from or why he'd chosen to help them, but he knew he was jealous. The two elves had walked together well ahead of the main group for the entire trip. Cullen had to admit that Isaura probably had far more in common with Solas than she did him, and the thought hurt.

The place was a mess, which was only to be expected after hundreds of years of disuse, so they all slept in their tents for the first few weeks. The first thing they did, though, was give Isaura the title she'd all but had already: Inquisitor. Now out of Cullen's reach even more, he might as well be yearning for Blessed Andraste Herself. It wouldn't look good if the Inquisitor, already under heavy scrutiny, started a relationship with the commander of her army. Not that he was in any place to be in a relationship with _anyone_. He shouldn’t even be thinking about her like that.

A gentle voice broke into his brooding. "Have you slept at all since we got here?" Isaura said. Under the teasing, there was real concern. "We need our commander to be at his best, you know."

That normally would have caused a stab of pain, but she didn't know about the lyrium yet and she looked so very tired herself. Cullen made his usual excuse about there being too much to do; it was true enough anyway.

When she asked him what he thought of the Inquisition and its people, he unthinkingly said that mages tended to dislike him on principle. "I never did," Isaura said quietly, with an odd smile that made him stammer out his thanks. Her smile broadened, but then slowly faded, as she said, "How many did we lose?"

Cullen was completely honest when he told her it could have been much worse, but he knew how cold that comfort was. Isaura, like him, took every one of those deaths personally. As he attempted to find something else to say, his heart spoke before his brain could stop it. "You need to get some sleep, Isaura. We need your best as well." As the elf smiled again, Cullen turned bright red; he could feel the heat in his cheeks and his ears. "I-I apologize for the familiarity, Inquisitor," he managed, and her smile grew wistful. "I didn't mean to sound disrespectful."

"You didn't," the mage said, but the moment of camaraderie was gone. "I'll try to take that under advisement, Commander, thank you," Isaura said, and dammit, she _still_ sounded wistful. Before Cullen could try to take back the formality, she was gone, off to make someone else's day brighter.

Isaura cared about everyone. _Everyone_. She spent the extra time to make sure that their people were taken care of, even if that meant fighting crazy Avvar and hordes of undead in an isolated swamp. She'd almost-singlehandedly ended the conflict in the Hinterlands, and she'd taken in the survivors from the mage rebellion that had escaped the Venatori, after making sure they weren't working for Corypheus. "Who will fight harder than people who know what the penalty for losing is?" Isaura said when Cassandra asked about the decision. She was exactly what they’d needed, and the commander was quickly realizing she was everything he wanted.

Cullen had encountered Dorian in the library, complaining of boredom and mocking the archivist for losing to the Tevinter at chess. When the arrogant mage had declared that he had yet to find a decent challenge in all of Skyhold, Cullen offered to play. The Inquisitor found them in the middle of the game, and Cullen didn't let himself become formal again, choosing instead to taunt Dorian, who returned in kind. Isaura laughed as Dorian lost the game but the Tevinter mage managed to get the last word in. Cullen liked the elf’s laugh; he wanted to hear it again.

When he asked if she played, Isaura sat down in Dorian's place immediately. Cullen ignored the other man's knowing smirk and focused on the woman across the board. To his pleased surprise, she was good at the game, and she didn't go easy on him. He couldn't have said whether she won because of her skill at the game or because he'd been distracted. The game took them into the evening, and the setting sun made Isaura look like she was haloed in fire.

While the respite of an entire afternoon was nice, Cullen still had plenty of work to catch up on, so he was up late, as usual. He didn’t _think_ his brain was getting fuzzy, but it was hard to tell. If anything, the break this afternoon had revitalized him, making it easier to wade through the ocean of reports on his desk. Not everything needed a response from him, but it was good to keep abreast of what was going on. As he took his armor off and got ready for bed, the commander glanced out the window and saw a light, high in the tower where the Inquisitor’s rooms were. It made sense; she couldn’t possibly have less work than he did, since she had the same reports to read and less time to do it in. Who knew when or where she’d be called out next? Cullen wondered if she had anyone to make sure she got enough rest. As he got into bed, Cullen made a note to ask Josephine about it tomorrow.

 

#### She's elusive tonight; he hears her song before he sees her. Still immobile, he strains to turn, to search. Her laugh is like chiming crystal, and it sends a thrill through his spine. In his peripheral vision now, for a moment he thinks it's a different woman, one with a... tail? No. That's just her hair, tricky in the uncertain light.

#### She stands before him again, and again he can't move. Cullen licks suddenly parched and cracking lips, feeling like his mouth and throat are full of sand. Smiling, the blue woman moves closer. There's something wrong with her eyes, this close. They're blue, but even the pupils look blue, and the irises have a faint bluish cast as well. She's so close; maybe he can lick her lips, quenching his thirst.

#### A different laugh jars the crystalline beauty of the laughing song, somehow making it sound discordant. The blue woman draws back and frowns as Cullen's attention strays from her. She turns her head to seek out the interruption and he sees the faint afterimage of horns. Horns?

#### Before she can turn back and beguile him once more, the laugh turns to an indistinct shout.

 

Cullen’s eyes opened. He could still hear the shout that had disrupted his dream. The laugh had been Isaura's, and it sounded like her now, yelling at someone, Solas probably. Cullen's earlier jealousy of the bald elf had obviously been misplaced; Isaura usually looked irritated after their conversations. _She's not irritated after talking to you._ The thought drifted through Cullen's head as he noticed that the blue dream had had its usual effect on his body. Was it the dream, though, or was it Isaura's voice?

He closed his eyes again, listening. An exasperated thought, separate from this hyper-aware arousal, wondered if Isaura had slept at all. Then she laughed again, a bit closer.  He thought he heard someone else, not Solas. Varric, maybe, or Bull? They must have been on the curtain wall, voices carrying through the holes in his floor and walls. She could have been right there, and Cullen had to bite back a groan as he reached for himself.

The mage wasn't close enough for the commander to make out the words, but the snatches of sound he could hear built him up faster and more intensely than any crystalline blue dream. Cullen arched into his own hold, managing to stay silent as he reached his climax, a sudden, vivid picture of the Dalish mage, here and naked, superimposed on his closed eyelids as he finished. He'd never seen her in anything less than the comfortable clothes she wore under her armor, but those fit her very well and he was good at extrapolation.

After tidying up the mess, Cullen lay back on his bed for a few minutes. How in the name of the Maker was he supposed to look at the Inquisitor over the war table without blushing? Leliana already teased him incessantly; give her some solid ammunition and he'd be toast. Not to mention that it wouldn't look good for Isaura; there was all manner of ugly talk about her being Dalish before Haven had fallen, and he knew of at least two anti-elf people among the newcomers to Skyhold. Cullen would not make that worse, if he could help it. Never mind that she flirted back; she flirted with Bull, too. Of course, _everyone_ flirted with Bull.

Cullen couldn’t tell if Leliana was in a particularly impish mood or she’d managed to spot something. Either way, as he greeted the Inquisitor with what he thought was his normal aplomb, the spymistress commented that some people were more eager to see her than others, and Cullen knew he was blushing, even as Isaura tried gallantly not to laugh. Before his dignity could suffer any more blows, the Inquisitor brought them back to the topic at hand, though the faint dimples at the corners of her mouth remained for the entire time.

"So when are you going to do something about this?" Leliana ambushed Cullen as soon as the Inquisitor and Cassandra left. "Do you need help with talking about your feelings?"

"Oh, Leliana, leave him alone," Josephine said. "He's trying to be proper, unlike you."

"When am I improper in public?" Leliana retorted, but her light blue eyes were merry.

"You came very near just now," the commander ventured, knowing he couldn't manage hauteur with these two and not trying. "Josephine's right, Leliana. It's not appropriate."

"No, but if it becomes a distraction…" Leliana started, and Cullen shook his head firmly.

"It won't. It's _not_."

"Do you want to talk about it?" Josephine said, considerably more gently.

"No." Cullen tried to smile at the ambassador, who was genuinely trying to help. "It's all right, Josephine. I won't let it affect the Inquisition."

"I'm not worried about the Inquisition; I'm worried about _you_ ," the diplomat said, more bluntly than usual. "Between the lyrium and the fact that you never seem to sleep, normally a flirtation would be a relief." 

Leliana sighed and said, "He's not going to let us help, Josie. I must go; Harper has a report from the Exalted Plains that I need to see."

After she was gone, Josephine said quietly, "She's Dalish and people still see her as Andraste's Herald. If it happens, there are worse things." As Cullen stared at her, the Antivan laughed. "I've actually managed to shock you. Isaura isn't held to the same rigid terms of formality that a normal head of state would be. We make our own place and have since the formation of the Inquisition. It would make people talk, but everything Isaura does makes people talk."

Cullen blinked at his friend for a long moment, then said weakly, "I have no idea if she'd be interested." He would have said more, but Josephine laughed again.

"Oh, she is. She stares at you when she thinks no one is watching and you are always one of the first people she checks in with when she gets back." The diplomat grinned at Cullen's expression, which he'd guess was between surprise and hope. "Leliana wasn't just teasing _you_ this afternoon."

####    
The blue woman returns, the first time in a long time she's been two nights in a row. The part of Cullen that knows this is a dream wonders if she's trying to complete what was thwarted last time. Before she becomes more than a blurry silhouette, a tart voice says, "That's quite enough of that."

#### Cullen starts, and realizes he can move. It _is_  still the dream, right? Since he can turn, he does, seeing Isaura striding toward the blue figure, the crystalline harmony coming to a halt that is a combination of tinkling and grating. The mage is fully dressed this time, though unarmed and unarmored.   
Before he can say anything, the blue figure becomes more distinct. She has no horns or tail, but the suggestion of both hang in the air, and Cullen looks down to see if he's armed. He's not. He's naked. He can feel a blush rising from his chest to turn his face scarlet. This is his dream; he ought to be able to imagine clothes for himself, but he remains resolutely nude.

#### Isaura apparently doesn't notice his state of undress, though he can see the same dimples he'd seen at the War Table. Her voice is stern enough when she speaks, but it's not to him. "Off you go. You've tormented him quite enough." The blue woman frowns, which makes her face look unnatural in a way that her serenity did not. Cullen takes half a step backward, and the frown deepens. She still does not speak, and Cullen realizes she cannot, which makes her no desire demon, even in a dream. Relief moves through him as a shudder. Seeing that, the blue woman shakes her head and, with a sound of shattering glass, disappears.

#### "That was certainly dramatic," a quiet voice next to the commander says, and he's forcibly reminded, not only of his own nudity, but the effect that voice can have on him. This freezes Cullen just as surely as the blue woman's song. "Oh, stop that. It's a dream and you know that," Isaura says, voice affectionate. "Your subconscious just needed a hand and you landed on me. I'm sure the real-life version of me would be flattered."

#### "I may not mention this part if I tell her," Cullen says dryly, and Dream Isaura laughs, just as the real one undoubtedly would have. "Thank you. Product of my own subconscious or not, you did help." He makes himself turn to look at her. She's still dressed, and suddenly so is he.

#### "Mind over matter," the dream mage says with a wink.

 

Cullen woke up in his usual state of arousal, but not the heart-pounding terror that went with it. He was also not thirsty and the headache that often accompanies the lyrium dreams was nowhere to be found. "Lyrium," he said aloud. "Of course." The worst physical symptoms of the addiction should be starting to fade, though the other nightmares would probably be with him for the rest of his life. There was a difference between "starting to fade" and how much like a new man Cullen felt, though some of that could be because of how well he'd slept otherwise. It was still early, but it was perhaps an hour before dawn, rather than the usual two or three. 

He still had to deal with his body before getting out of bed, but he allowed himself to fantasize this time, letting his mind lead him to Isaura's hands on him instead of his own and Isaura's mouth. It still didn't take long, but it was much less draining. Cullen was actually humming to himself as he climbed down the ladder to start work for the day, an old Fereldan love song. 

Now that Josephine had pointed it out, it was pretty obvious that coming out to talk to him was near the top of Isaura's to-do list, which was good. Cullen wasn't sure his good mood was going to last and he didn't want to lose his nerve. He almost did anyway, but she asked to talk to him alone, and he drew courage from the fact that she was obviously nervous as well. 

He took her out to the wall; his office suddenly seemed confining and he was afraid she'd somehow sense his thoughts from the morning if they stayed so close to his room. They were both awkward with small talk as they found a good, secluded spot, a crumbled section of the wall that offered a beautiful view of Skyhold behind them and the valley far below. 

Cullen had just managed to start telling Isaura about his feelings when one of the runners came out with some trivial thing. Cullen was annoyed enough at the interruption to chase off the poor lad in his usual Terrifying Commander voice. As the runner fled, he turned back. Isaura was _definitely_ blushing and trying not to laugh again, and she was so adorable that he cut off whatever she'd been about to say with a kiss. She tasted amazing, and she reciprocated the kiss with interest.

He broke off to finish explaining, but she was smiling and leaning into his embrace, and Cullen decided talking could wait, pulling her closer to kiss her properly this time.

**Author's Note:**

> Please let me know if there's something glaring that needs changing. The formatting is necessary for the flow, and since I don't compose things in HTML, it means I have to do a whole lot of poking at things until they look right. If it's not about the formatting, tell me anyway. I really don't mind. :3


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